OpenID Gets Powerful Supporter in Facebook

Last month, David Murphy wrote that "open-source projects like OpenID are paving the way for a new generation of connectivity, one where differing Web entities come to you for information and display it in a format and location of your choosing." Taking a giant step in that direction, Facebook has officially become an OpenID relying party.

What that means is that Facebook users can now link their Facebook account to a Gmail address, OpenID URL, or any OpenID provider that supports automatic login. It's a move that has proved popular so far, according to Facebook.

"In tests we've run, we've noticed that first-time users who register on the site with OpenID are more likely to become active Facebook users," Facebook says. "They get up and running after registering even faster than before, find their friends easily, and quickly engage on the site."

The social networking site says it plans to integrate more OpenID providers as time goes one, one of which is expected to be Microsoft.